The Secret of Spellshadow Manor (Spellshadow Manor #1)

“That would be nice,” she admitted, and turned over onto her stomach, propping her head up on his pillow. “Do you really think this will work?”


“I don’t know what to expect, exactly,” Alex said, moving to sit beside Natalie and examining her back skeptically. If he was being honest, he really didn’t know what to do. He tried to think back to what Ellabell had been saying. Something about Spellbreakers’ magic working almost inversely to normal magic?

“I’m about to begin,” he told her. “You ready?”

She nodded, and, slowly, he analyzed a procedure he had learned several weeks back in class. It was called Erandale’s Needle, and it was a focusing technique meant to gather one’s energy into a long, needle-like point from their fingertips. First, he attempted the process as normal, and as he expected, he received no result. His fingers pressed tight together, his arm extended, his shoulders leveled, but nothing happened.

“Is that the Needle technique?” Natalie asked curiously, looking over one shoulder.

“Yes. Hang on, though, I have to…concentrate.”

He altered the technique, opening his fingers, focusing his energy on his palm. Slowly, he went through the form and corrected it, inverting every aspect. He let his mind unfocus, opening itself to the world around him.

The sudden rush of energy to his fingertips was so abrupt that he almost cried out as he felt a little orb of coldness pulse out of him. He shook his hand, swearing as a disturbance momentarily twirled in the air, then seemed to collapse in upon itself. Natalie lifted her head a little, apparently unable to detect that anything had happened.

“What is it?”

Alex could barely contain his excitement as he spoke. “I just…never mind. I’ll show you later.”

So, Alex thought. I was right. A focusing technique for magic can be inverted to create an opposite style of anti-magic.

Frowning with concentration, he drew his hand into a position for a different technique, one designed to create spheres of magical energy, then corrected it until each element of it was inverted. Then, he let his mind open, becoming expansive and encompassing.

This time, he was expecting the little rush of power, and he could sense the wavering, malformed rod of negative energy that bloomed from his palm. It was gray as smoke, with thin, intricate lines of obsidian lining it like cracks. Looking into the thing, he could almost feel himself falling, drawn in by a sucking, hungry power.

A void, he thought. He wasn’t making something. He was making the absence of something. He tried to control the little blade as it quaked and shook, but it was like trying to hold sand in his cupped palms. No matter what he tried, his little needle of un-power fizzed and distorted.

Hastily, not wanting to lose it, he dipped the tip down to touch Natalie’s back.

She gasped in pain as frost swirled out over her skin, all but leaping away from the touch to sit with her back against the wall, staring at him with wide eyes.

“What was that?” she demanded.

“Sorry!” Alex exclaimed, his anti-magic wobbling out of existence in his dismay. “I didn’t mean to—”

“That hurt,” Natalie interrupted, rubbing at her back with a pained expression. “Is that what it feels like whenever someone hits you with a spell?”

“I guess it must be. Are you okay?”

She pursed her lips, then rolled forward, lying on her stomach once more.

“Of course I am okay. Try again,” she said.

Alex hesitated. “Are you sure?”

“If you can endure this for hours on end,” Natalie said, “I can deal with it for a few minutes. Go ahead.”

Alex reluctantly summoned the void again, the effort of it sending an unexpected tremble up his arm, then lowered it against Natalie’s back once more. Cold tendrils snaked from the spot, but this time Natalie just gritted her teeth, twisting his sheets in her fists and cursing fluently under her breath.

Moving quickly, Alex opened his mind and let himself breathe in the sensations of Natalie’s essence moving against his own. It was delicate, passionate, with a restless compulsion toward movement that was unable to stop. He almost smiled in recognition.

And then something else touched him.

A sinister malevolence brushed his essence, and both he and Natalie drew in sharp breaths. He could sense the way it coiled around her, like a snake with its fangs sunk deep into her, squeezing. At his touch, it seized up, tightening its hold, and Natalie groaned.

Alex examined the foreign power. It was strong. Much stronger than either Aamir or Natalie had felt, and…cold. It had a calculating, sinister strength to it. If he could change his essence to a blade, he might be able to cut Natalie free, but…

“Alex,” she said, “whatever you are doing, I think—”

She cut off, gagging and convulsing as a throb of red pierced her magic.

He abruptly withdrew his anti-magic, recalling Ellabell’s words.

It would be difficult, even for them.

Natalie was limp on the bed, panting.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking at the swaths of ice now covering her back.

“I am fine,” she groaned irritably. “I just want to lie here for a minute, please.”

“Well,” he said with a shaking voice, “I think we can say for sure that you’re cursed.”

She moaned, pushing her face deeper into his pillow and letting her arms hang over the sides of his bed.

“And I’m afraid I can’t remove it,” Alex said ruefully. “Not without a great deal of practice.”

“Wonderful,” Natalie mumbled dismally into the pillow.

She rolled to a sitting position, then rose from the bed, dusting off her clothes and gathering up her book. Alex watched her in disbelief.

“You can’t be getting back to work?”

“Of course I am,” she said indignantly.

Alex smiled. “If you’re sure, I won’t try to stop you. I’ll stay here and practice. Maybe I can fix it.” He sounded uncertain even to himself.

“Yes, practice. I’m sure you will figure it out,” she said, and strode out the door, leaving him sitting alone on his bed.